Over the Hills
by vinnie2757
Summary: The year is 1815, Napoleon and Francis have been thoroughly thrashed, and Captain Arthur Kirkland has been granted leave to stay with his Belgian girl for a month. Not that he seems to realise she's his girl. Love, after all, is blindness.


**Title: **Over the Hills

**Fandom: **_Hetalia: Axis Powers_

**Author: ** Me, Vinnie2757

**Genre:** Romance, History, and Slice-of-Life I guess

**Character/Pairing: **England/Belgium, Prussia(/Brandenburg), France makes a brief appearance (Portugal, Germany and Italy mentioned)

**Rating: **K+

**Warnings:** minor language, alcohol, some UST

**Summary: **The year is 1815, Napoleon and Francis have been thoroughly thrashed, and Captain Arthur Kirkland has been granted leave to stay with his Belgian girl for a month. Not that he seems to realise she's his girl. Love, after all, is blindness.

**A/N: **1815 EngBel is the best EngBel and I shall start throwing drinks should you wish to challenge me on it. We will meet at dawn. I jest, I jest. Enjoy, my lovelies~!

**Over the Hills**

"_Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop._"

**H. L. Mencken**

"_For love is immortality."_

**Emily Dickinson**

It is 1815, and Waterloo is a victory for the Alliance. France has been thoroughly thrashed, and his Emperor flees in disgrace to live out his days in exile. Celebrations last long into the night, and Arthur, feeding off the energy of his boys, keeps up with them, laughing and singing and drinking.

Marie stays close to him all night, long after the other women have retired to their beds, her fingers warm and soft in his elbow, at his nape. He finds her presence a comfort, a joy, and more than once he catches himself leaning in to kiss her. Kissing, he knows, is incredibly improper – to take such a liberty! It's unthinkable, to kiss her as though he were her husband!

(Later, years and years later, as she helps him with his tie ready for an EU meeting that he almost got himself banned from, she will admit that she had stayed close to the rowdy little band of English soldiers in the hopes that he, Arthur, would get drunk enough to forget that there was such a thing as propriety, that he had no claims to her, and kiss her. Apparently, he learnt, she had been longing for a kiss from him for almost a thousand years. She tells him not to let it go to his head, but he spends all meeting watching her instead of paying attention, not that that's all that different.)

Arthur – Wellesley, not Kirkland – comes to tell them to take to their beds. Their general, Lord Wellington, he's a good man, marvellous chap, and they oblige him without a second's hesitation, kicking dirt into the fire and stumbling off to their tents. Arthur – Kirkland, not Wellesley – is given leave to return to Miss Lateau's house, to sleep off the hangover under her roof, and he does not object to her steadying hand helping him across the field and into town.

He sleeps like the dead that night, all the fighting and the death and his own injuries, mostly healed now, weighing him down, and he sleeps well into the morning. Marie is careful to let him rest, to stay quiet as she sneaks in to make sure the curtains are closed before heading downstairs to bake in the kitchen. When Arthur eventually surfaces from his bed, she smiles at him, giggles at the way his hair's flat on one side and awry the other, and crosses the kitchen to pull his face down, examining it.

'You look awful,' she tells him, and he grins, slow and easy, with missing teeth and cracked lips, and she points to a chair. 'Sit. I'll make you tea. I just made those awful scones of yours, if you'd like a cream tea.'

He would, and he makes sure she joins him, and once they're both sitting with everything in front of them, he thanks her, as much gratitude as he can fit in the two words whilst he's still sleepy about the edges. As he's occupied with eating, she takes the liberty of watching his face, watching as the colour come back with his stretches and yawns. Sometimes, she thinks she catches him looking at her, but she's so quick to avert her eyes that she cannot be sure.

'I should report in,' he says eventually, and she tells him to stop cracking his knuckles, it's a disgusting sound.

He grins and pops his neck, makes her shudder and kick his shin under the table. But Arthur is an Empire, one of the strongest men to have ever walked the earth – stronger, even, than Rome. He barely feels her foot, and his face is far too innocent to be sliding his own toes, bare and bony and filthy, up her calf in retaliation.

'Behave,' she chides, but her cheeks are warm.

(She realises belatedly, as she runs him a bath, that that must be what he thought she'd done, stroked his shin with her toes. As if she'd be so forward!)

After he's scrubbed the gunpowder and blood and sweat from his skin, made himself pink for it, he returns to camp to speak to Wellington and get his orders. Marie knows, as he lets her wrap her arms around his neck and breathe the smell of his uniform in, that she will likely not see him for years now. With the war over, there is nothing to keep him here; she is not worth staying for, she knows, and she hesitates at the thought of kissing him – not goodbye, but a farewell. An incentive, maybe, to come back.

But she hesitates too long, and he's slipping out of her arms and out of town, and it's all she can do to watch his back as he walks away.

(The next time she sees him leave her house in uniform, it will not be red, but green, and just as stained by blood and dirt, but he will not be alone. He will be flanked by his boys, carrying their packs over one shoulder, and their rifles over the other, and they will disappear from the world to reappear when it suits them, when their mission is over. The way he laughs as he tells her that it's okay, that he's made the bastard pay for what he did, it chills her to her core and she does not allow him to stay the night. It is the first time she has ever refused him a bed in her house, and he must know that, but he does not argue, nods and leaves her to herself.

Arthur is not a man, but an animal, a beast caged in a human shell. He is not bound by the delicacies of his form, by the decencies of man. He is nothing more than a raging monster, tearing at the walls until the bars fall and the beast is freed.

She has only seen the beast twice.

The first, she strives to forget, the hate and the pain and the claws digging into her skin as the monster wearing her – her – wearing _his_ skin searched her face, sought out an excuse to rampage, to destroy and be destroyed in turn. She closed her eyes to those eyes of his, so achingly beautiful and so horrifyingly angry, and that had been all he – it, _it – _needed.

The second, humans call it the Angel of Mons, veterans remembering the lightning in absinthe eyes and the screaming rage they mistook for divinity, but Arthur is not any more of an Angel than Lucifer, and she remembers picking her way across what remained of the battlefield to find him naked and shivering in a ditch, staring at his hands as though he had never seen them before. It was not the first time she had seen him naked, nor would it be the last, but her heart was hammering in her chest, lurching with every step closer, and she could not find it in her to fight a teasing little aside past the bile in her throat.

The mud went past her ankles, made sick noises that ached in her bones as she slid down the embankment to him, pulling at her jacket to give him something – anything – to cover his skin.

She'll never forget the way he looked at her as she squelched across the ditch to crouch in front of him, the blind fear and the self-loathing, combined in a way she'd never seen, wished to never, ever see again.)

Arthur paces, a lion in its cage, watching its tamer with a dark gaze, predatory and filthy, and Wellington ignores him, let him snarl and crack his knuckles in a corner by himself. He has more important things to discuss than his nation's foul mood, and he has no patience for the man's ridiculousness.

'Will you sit down?' he asks, orders, and Kirkland snarls back at him, not using words.

Beast, indeed. How does Miss Lateau put up with you, he wonders.

'No,' Arthur spits, and completes another circuit.

'Then leave.'

'Nonsense.'

Wellington does not rise, does not let the boy get the best of him, would never allow such madness. Honestly, who does he think he is, to be so impertinent?

'Lord Wellington, sir!'

Both Arthurs look up, Kirkland hopeful and Wellington intrigued, and one of their spies slips through the tent, hands over mission reports and dispatches from the lion's den, and all Kirkland can think is _let me go, let me leave, let me return to her, please, please, please_.

Wellington ignores him, and Kirkland continues to grumble, limping about on a still-injured leg. The break is almost healed, the skin smooth beneath unpicked stitches, but the bone is still tender, sore and soft and it will never heal fully; it will always ache with the rain.

(By the time his Empire has slipped through his fingers, and by the time he is ready to retire from this hideous, war-mongering life of his, every bone will ache with the rain, and every scar will throb with the storm. Marie's hands will be warm on the chilled, dead skin, and she will keep the thunder at bay with a thousand kisses.)

The spies have chased Napoleon from his forfeited land, from this place of victory, and the Dutch have proclaimed all sorts of designs for the battlefield.

'If you let them destroy this field,' Wellington says, too cheery for one so angry, 'I shall be so thoroughly disappointed.'

The short, rotund spy with his frankly stupid moustache (Arthur has never been fond of facial hair, Marie even less so, going as far as to force Arthur into a chair any time she deemed him getting too scruffy.) bows and promises nothing will happen.

(Wellington is not happy about that monument.)

It is late in the afternoon by the time Arthur is given his orders. He has been pacing ever since leaving Wellington's tent, growling and hissing to himself, and though the soldiers appreciate his help in dismantling camp, Arthur is rough, and quick, and they struggle to keep up with him, leading to more than one tent fallen atop a redcoat. Hogan comes to find him, leads him back to Wellington like the loyal dog he is, and Wellington hands him a slip of paper.

Though small, the parchment is heavy in Arthur's fingers, weighed down by ink and a wax seal. He stares at it, and then at his General.

'Leave,' Wellington explains, eyes bright beneath his brows. 'To stay here for no longer than a month. We wanted to get you more, but you know how it is in the lion's den. They always want you for something.'

He searches Arthur's face, and Arthur fights to school his features, to calm himself to the rigid, stoic gentleman he purports to be. He is nothing of the sort, they both know, but there is nothing wrong with a few white lies.

(Arthur lies to everybody, to himself even. Out of everybody, he lies to himself the most, the worst. Marie tells him he is an awful liar, for he always tells the truth to her, as much of it as he dares, and he has not learnt the difference between the two. He never does.)

'Go to her,' the Duke says then, and laughs as Arthur scurries out, almost tripping in his haste.

The beast is free, but Marie has gentle hands to tame him, a soft smile and whispered adorations to bring him to heel, and the poor boy hasn't realised it yet.

She welcomes him back into her home with a laugh, says she knew he was coming and readied tea for him.

'Did Wellington send word?' Arthur asks her, shrugging out of his redcoat _at last_, hopping about as he pulls his boots off. He always leaves a change of clothes with her, so that he always has something to wear should – as is the case now – the clothes he wears when he arrives are too dirty or wet. When he has changed his shoes over, he follows her through to the kitchen.

'No,' she says, and carefully stirs a pretty little cup before placing it on its saucer. 'I just knew, somehow. I always know when you're due to arrive on my doorstep, dear.' She hands him the tea, and gives him a feline little smile, all wry glee. 'You have never been very subtle, you know. I can hear you stomping about a mile away.'

He laughs, and she's missed the sound; his laughter has been so bitter of late, and it's nice to know she can still get those giggles from him.

'Do be kind,' he tells her, 'I just won a war for you.'

She smiles, and slips under his arms to wrap herself about his middle, ear to his heart and humming softly. He's hard under her embrace, all tight muscle and harder sinew, and it's the most muscled he will ever be. His physical appearance will wane soon, as war spreads across the continent, across the world, and it will take him almost a hundred years to get the muscle back, but it will stay buried beneath fat built by hibernation, soft to the prod but hard to the punch. She will feel safer then than she does now, though she would not believe it were she to be told as such.

'You did,' she hums, stroking her fingers across the linen of his shirt, feeling the colonial, summer warmth of his skin beneath and smiling. He's warmer than he's ever been, warmer still than when he returned from visits to America. 'And I am very grateful.'

His fingers, rough, burnt with gunpowder and ink stained into the whorls, skip across her arms, raise the skin there and set the fine hair on edge. She shivers, burrows deeper into his warmth and sighs. She can hear his chest hair scratching against the linen with every shift and breath as they stand there, and it makes her smile. He's grown so much in such a short space of time, and though it worries her, she thinks that she'll catch up eventually, that his age will plateau and he'll reach back down the mountain to help her, talking of the view as he does.

'I am,' he starts, but cannot bring himself to finish it, and she longs to hear the words.

_Glad you're safe_, he'll say, and though she might like to hear them, they are not a necessity. She knows her little English dear far too well, can read him and his too-honest truths like a Book of Common Prayer, does not need the words to leave his mouth to know he's said them.

'I didn't know,' she admits, and digs a finger under the strap of his trouser brace to snap it, and laughs at his flinch. 'That you were coming, I mean. I – I had just _hoped_, and then there was this feeling in my gut. Like when you see home for the first time in months, and you know just a few steps more and you're safe in your own four walls? That was the feeling I got, and I just knew you were on your way. Is that silly of me?'

Of course it is, but Arthur's fingers twirl a lock of her hair, and she glances up to find him staring off into the middle-distance again. Listening, no doubt, to whichever fairy threw dust into her heart to let her know her Captain was coming home.

'No,' he hums eventually, and his fingers are warm and gentle against her neck and bare shoulder. 'Most certainly not.'

They have stood like this for entirely too long, but he gives no inclination of wanting to end the embrace, so she makes no move to let go of him. He cannot embrace her back, tea in hand as it is, but she is content to rest her ear to his heart.

'You know,' he says, and smiles when she looks up at him. 'This would be much easier if we were sitting.'

'It would,' she agrees, 'but that involves letting go, and I have no desire to do so just yet.'

He thinks on this for a while, and she wonders if he's mulling over the implications of such a brash, unbidden statement, whether he is analysing every little inflection of her accent, and analysing his own feelings about it in turn, or whether he simply does not care.

After the pause has dragged, he says, 'Stand on my feet.'

She thinks him silly, and tells him as such, but he repeats the request again, and a third time when she hesitates.

No one has walked her around thusly since she was a child under Rome's wings, since her relationship with Lars was such that he doted on her, and being walked around on Arthur's feet is an adventure. She'd make no secret, should he ask, of the fact she would rather be in his arms than on his feet, but for now she remains mum, lets him walk them through the house to her couch.

He takes a seat next to her – too close to be entirely proper, but who _cares_ about proper, he has the saucer balanced on one thigh, and his arm's on the back of the couch, practically _inviting_ her to lean in, and what kind of woman would she be if she didn't?

'What will you do now?' she asks him, and it would be so easy to touch him, to run her fingers across the well-worn linen of his breeches, starting to fray at the seams and he gets through uniforms just as fast as he gets through tea. 'The war is over, and there is nothing for you to fight with Francis about now.'

'Oh, I'm sure I'll find something,' Arthur hums. 'I'll go make fun of his hair, if nothing else appears to entertain me.'

She pinches at his thigh for that, and he laughs again.

'I have leave to stay here for a month, if you'll have me for that long.'

_I'd have you forever_, she thinks, but nods.

'I'm sure I'll find a use for you. There will be things to repair in town, no doubt, and I'm sure things here will require your attention. My garden, for instance.'

Arthur smiles and his fingers trail fire across her arm.

'Are the roses wilting again?'

She hums, and he finishes off the tea.

'Well,' he sighs, 'I'll take a look at them in the morning, it's much too late to get a good look now.'

'It's a good job that you leave clothes with me,' she says, and she'd deny that she wears them about the house when she's missing him, because he would never let her forget it.

(He still grumbles about it over a century later, because he _needs_ that shirt, madam, please remove it from your person; I have a meeting to attend. She tells him he should have expected it and brought a spare, and he is forced to subject himself to Francis' judgement for wearing the same shirt two days in a row. Francis asks if it's his wife, and Arthur has to remind him that they are not married. Francis says that he wonders about that, but does not expand on it, Ludwig calling them to order, Feliciano get down from there before you hurt yourself.)

'Very much so,' Arthur agrees, and settles his hand against her side. 'It would be just _awful_ if I had to be walking about with no clothes.'

She glances up at him to find him grinning off to one side, and she grins too, knows exactly what he's thinking.

'Well, dear, if you hadn't spent so long in the bath, I would not have had to come and check to make sure that you were still alive. It would be just _awful_ if you fell asleep and drowned.'

He chuckles, squeezes his fingers, and she has never felt happier than in this moment, cannot think of another time that she has felt so at ease.

They eat late, and retire later still, Arthur lingering about as though he had some sort of plan or design for her that he wished to express but could not find the words. Oh, but that he could! She'd caught him looking at her with such heat that she'd felt it in her cheeks, and had been forced to look at something else; surely, she thinks, watching him give one of those stupid little half-bows of his and turn to his bedroom, surely he _knows_.

As she lies in bed and stares out of the window at the stars shining bright in the midnight velvet sky, she thinks that perhaps he cannot read her as well as she can read him. Arthur has never been very good with _people_, but she is not _people_, she is a _person_.

Sleep does not come for her, and so she tosses and turns before giving in and creeping across the hall. They have shared a bed before, and she sees no harm in doing so now, standing in his doorway for a few moments, just watching. He's such a messy sleeper, limbs sticking out from under the covers, and snoring quietly. His nose has been broken, again, and she'll simply have to put up with it. It takes several minutes to manhandle him back into bed proper, and she realises, as she rearranges the blankets so she can get under them, that he isn't wearing clothes.

He sniffs, fidgets, and his snoring stops. She freezes beside him, too late to go back, but not knowing what to say. All he does, however, is rearrange himself, one leg throwing itself over hers to press warm and soft against her back, nose pressed to her neck. He starts snoring again, and she's still awake when he turns to mumbling, palm wide and fingers firm against her stomach, and she wonders, as she drifts, finally, what he's dreaming of.

By the time morning comes, they have separated, him sprawled once again, prone with one leg sticking out from under the sheets, pinning them under its weight and leaving absolutely nothing to her imagination, and her curled on her side with a hand under her head and the other under her chin. His face is turned away, and she takes the opportunity to play, briefly, with the curls at his nape, measure the length of hair that – yes, yes it needs cutting, desperately so.

You'd think the army had no barber with how scruffy its men got.

(Arthur has never been good at shaving, and he's worse at keeping his hair in order, and she teases him every time she shaves him.)

He doesn't react, and her fingers trail over the bunched muscles in his upper arm, bent up by his head before retreating to her side of the bed. As he continues to slumber, so she watches him, the shift of dawn light on his skin as he breathes, the shadows formed by the stretch and pull of raised scars, puckered and stitched.

'Do you know I think you're beautiful?' she whispers, and trails her eyes over old lash scars; Rome, she thinks, remembers those days. But some are newer, barely faded; he must have gotten them in the war, and wonders what the fool did to get lashed.

But she knows Arthur, he is her Book of Common Prayer, and she knows he'll have taken the lash for another soldier. He's done it before and he'll do it again.

(She remembers the days of Elizabeth, the day he told her of his hanging, proud of himself, and _oh_, his hubris was to be the death of him! Walsingham used to use him as a test subject for his torture devices, because what better man to test them on than the one who cannot die? He still has the knot of scarring at his hairline, hidden behind those curls of his, the burn of rope etched forever into his skin. And he bore it _so proudly_.)

'Arthur, dear?'

He hums, and shifts his weight, but otherwise proceeds to ignore her. No, no, he isn't _ignoring _her, he's simply not responding, too far to his sleep as he is. She lays beside him still, head pillowed on a bent arm, and her fingertip reaches out again to draw patterns with the freckles on his back, joining them spot-by-spot until she's drawn a misshapen dog, or a flower, or written _mijn liefde_ down the swooping canyon of his spine, across the churning lakes of his shoulder blades. Her fingers fit perfectly into the marks Venus has carved into his flesh, dimples so exquisite she'd think him a marble statue, or a painting by Feliciano, back when his art had been allowed to flourish, reaching pinnacles art had previously only dreamt of.

'Behave,' he sighs, but his muscles relax, his form spreading out for her; tanned, speckled skin and red, white, purple scars cracking perfection into shards of humanity, into little pieces she takes pleasure in reassembling. Arthur is a glorious puzzle, and one she longs to complete.

(Pieces of him have been chipped away, a finger here, a toenail there, his heart lost and burnt to gods he cannot appease. Marie does not realise it, but her finger, her toenail, her heart, so full and beautiful, will replace his, will slot into place as they have always been destined to. She _will_ be the one to complete him, and he, in turn, will complete her.)

'Dear?' she tries again, since she seems to have his attention now.

'What is it, darling?'

He does not seem particularly interested; he is still turned away, and she knows sleep is a far more seductive mistress than she. Though the sun has long been up, he seems to just be enjoying the warmth of it on his back. Not, she thinks, that he needs any more sun.

'If I were to ask,' she starts, and fiddles with the blanket. 'Would you, having promised to never deny me anything you could give, would you make love to me?'

For several long moments, he does not reply, and her heart begins to sink.

'No,' he grunts, and the steady decline down a hill becomes a plummet from a cliff.

Her heart hurts, for though she had _known_ that the answer would be no, she had deluded herself, talked her heart into believing that he meant those words, that that promise had been one he intended to keep. She had fallen for her own lies, her own fantasies of a world where she was important enough to be worth his notice, where she was old enough that he might take an interest beyond platonic affection.

After a moment, Arthur rolls onto his back, but she is too busy trying not to cry to admire the rise and fall of his chest, the steady beat of his pulse in his neck, the coiled steel and dark shadows of his muscles, the sun-stained gold of the hair on his chest and arms, curling like that at his nape.

'This is not how I imagined it to go,' he says, quiet, contemplative, and his nails rake across his belly. The blankets are so low about his hips that were she to look, she would see the dark blond of curls not too dissimilar to her own. 'If I were to ever be afforded an opportunity to make love to you, I would have it be no less than perfect.'

She presses her face into the pillow beneath her head, as though it would quell the tears any, and says nothing.

'I would be lying if I were to say I had never thought of it – I am only – you are – it seems.' He stops, and taps his fingers, humming as he thinks. 'I have seen the world, but I have never seen anything quite as beautiful as the way you look when I appear at your door after months at sea. I did not think it possible to forget how beautiful you are, but it always makes my breath catch, seeing you again.'

'Stop flattering me,' she says, and it comes out harder than she meant it to be. 'If you cared at all, you would have acted upon your words, rather than leaving them to hang so.'

He looks at her then, reaches out as if to touch her cheek, but her hand is faster than his, and slaps it away. They both seem shocked by the action, and though Arthur retreats, he does not stop looking at her as though he wishes to touch.

'Have you noticed?' she asks, barely a whisper, and he blinks at her.

'I've noticed many things,' he replies.

'We flit, so quickly, between one thing and another. In one second we might be lovers, married a decade, and the next we may as well be strangers.' She hesitates, takes a breath, and then asks, 'why can we not be the first? Why can we not be lovers, if not married and with a life to share?'

But even as she says it, she knows the answer; it is just wishful thinking.

'The time isn't right,' Arthur tells her, and she doesn't slap his hand away this time, lets his fingers brush her hair behind her ear, rolling onto his side to give his arm less need to stretch. The blanket, no longer trapped beneath his leg, falls away, but neither of them moves to replace it. 'If I could, I would never leave your bed. But we aren't – I'm not – it isn't _right._ Do you understand?'

'No,' she says, even though she does.

He is an Empire, and she is part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. They are not in any position to entertain a relationship, no matter how much they might want it. At times like these, lying together in early morning sunlight, watching the shadows in each other's eyes, she can almost believe he wants it as much as she does.

She wonders if he knows she has never so much as kissed a man, let alone lain with one. She wonders if he knows he is – and will continue to be – her first. Fate or not, she would have no other and imagines that the whole world must surely know that she is fiercely, hopelessly in love with Arthur Kirkland.

(He cannot say the same, has given himself, his body, to others, been taken and been the one taking, and he does not regret it, not really. He would, were he allowed, have her, and be content with his lot, never seek out another for as long as he might live.)

'Oh,' he says, and frowns a little. 'Well, I – hmm, how to explain it. I – I do love you, with all my heart. So very, very much, you do know that, don't you?'

'Yes,' she mumbles, a grudging acceptance. She would like to deny it, say that no, she didn't know, because he never made an attempt to tell her, but Arthur is not the most subtle of creatures, and his devotion to her is visible in the way he behaves. Reducing an Empire to a colt is something of a thrill, she'll admit freely, but that is not nearly enough. She had thought – imagined, perhaps, or deluded, once again – that it was, but her heart yearns in ways her body has only recently been prepared for. 'I suppose so.'

Her fringe falls into her eyes, but he brushes it away, fingertips smoothing across her skin. They rest, briefly, on her cheek before retreating.

'And I want you to be happy,' he continues, 'more than anything. If I could have you at my side, I would have you never leave it, and I would have you stay with me forever, to be happy with me. But right now, in this second, it isn't possible. You are still so young, Marie, and I. I can't put myself into a position to lose you, and I can't put you in the position of having to wait for me. My Empire takes me around the globe and back again; I'd spend so little time in your arms that I might as well not be in them at all.'

'Then when will there be time?' she asks him, frowning. 'If your Empire takes so much time now, when will you set aside time for _us_?'

'All Empires are destined to fall,' he tells her, and there's something in his eyes she hasn't seen for a long, long time. Fear. 'Rome fell, did he not? Toppled from the inside out.'

'No,' she snarls, and seeks out something of him to grab onto; his ear. 'You are _not_ going to die, do you hear me? I will make _damn_ sure you give that Empire up before it kills you. Do you hear me, Arthur James Kirkland? Do you?'

'I hear you,' he replies, and smiles, turns his head to kiss at her wrist. 'I hear you loud and clear.'

'Good.'

She twists his ear for good measure, and lets go of him. Her fingers, however, do not travel far, resting warm and girl-soft against his pulse, steady and content beneath her palm. Fingertips playing with his curls, she watches him.

'I don't want to lose you,' she whispers. 'All this time, we've stood together, and I would not lose you for anything, not least for that damnable Empire of yours.'

'It's hardly damnable,' he protests, but he doesn't look as convinced as he might have a half-century ago.

'Arthur.'

'Marie.'

They linger in silence, and then she's rolling out of bed and to her feet, eyes fixed on the window.

'Don't forget you promised to look at the roses for me today,' she says, and he nods.

'Of course, of course.'

He pulls the blanket up over his hips, flopping over onto his back to stare at the ceiling as she leaves the room to start getting ready for the day.

Their conversation of the morning goes unmentioned for the rest of the week, Arthur coming and going as he makes sure his soldiers get to port safely enough to return home, and Marie helping her people with cleaning up the debris from the battle. Soldiers, as she told Arthur at dinner one evening, were not very good at cleaning up after themselves, and tapped her lip to let him know there was sauce on his own.

Arthur spends most of his free time in Marie's garden, or kicking cannonballs into a pile on the remains of the battlefield. The sun is still burning strong, though dark clouds have lingered on the horizon, and he spends as much time in just breeches and boots as he can. His skin has, as a consequence, darkened to a golden brown that Marie hates him for, and admits to.

'How are you so dark?' she asks, 'when in that miserable little rain-pocket you call a country you are so fair?'

He shrugs, and scratches white lines into his shoulders as he itches at the freckles forming across his back. 'Good living, I suppose.'

'Imperial living, you mean,' she huffs, and he blushes, dark in his ears and low on his neck.

'Yes, I suppose so. And might I say, madam, that was rather rude of you! Miserable little rain-pocket, indeed!'

She grins at him, and ruffles his hair, asking as she goes whether he would like a cup of tea.

When the clean-up of the battlefield and the roads onto which fighting had spread had been completed, some of the villagers had brought a basket of fruits and expensive alcohols that Arthur, with his Imperial purse, would not have been able to justify buying, over to the house with the pretty rose bush growing around the door. Thanks, they'd said, to the pretty girl that lived there and her handsome British soldier.

Marie had blushed, and thanked them profusely, whilst Arthur had lingered, half-dressed in his military breeches and boots, pocket-knife in hand and with thorn-scratches up to his elbows, staring at the couple who'd brought the basket over in bewilderment.

'Wine?' he asks after the couple have gone and he's slunk back into the shade of the kitchen to investigate the basket. '_Brandy_?'

'Rum, too,' Marie hums, and sets the bottle aside. 'Stolen from the French, I believe.'

Arthur looks at them, and raps his knuckles against the glass, plays something he would pretend was a tune, if he were musically inclined.

'French,' he agrees, and raises an eyebrow to match the one she's raising in his direction.

'You knew it was French,' she says, slow, 'just by the sound of the glass?'

'I spend a lot of time with bottles,' Arthur tells her with a shrug, setting the drink to one side to see what else is in the basket. 'A fair few of them may have ended up on Francis' head.'

'Wretched man,' she huffs, but there is so little feeling he doesn't take offence.

After emptying the basket and examining what they have, she says, 'I could make a tart. Or perhaps a cake.'

'I care not,' he hums, and watches her face, the curve of her lips as she mulls it over, the brief flash of teeth as she bites, 'it will all go down the same, and I adore your cooking, no matter what it is.'

'You adore everyone's cooking,' she scoffs, and bumps their hips, 'since everyone is a better cook than you.'

'Be kind,' he chides, but she just laughs, and starts putting things away.

Arthur is not famous for being able to hold his alcohol, rather being infamous for failing to do so, and Marie is famous, in equal measure, for her ability to keep up with her German neighbours. But with thin blood, Arthur has learnt moderation, and Marie has grown over-confident with her stronger constitution, so there is only _something_ of a surprise when she drinks more than him, and is more than a little tipsy as a result.

He sits idle on the couch, open and easy, watching her potter about, dancing to music he can't hear. Ankle on knee, and arm over the couch back with glass in hand, he looks very comfortable indeed, and Marie decides, as the world tilts and spins and dances with her, that she would very much like to partake in that comfort.

Knocking his ankle so that his leg falls flat, she hitches her skirts and climbs, very unladylike, into his lap, straddling it as though she has a place there.

'Madam,' he says, but makes no attempt to move her.

'Hush,' she giggles, and pushes a finger against his lips. It almost goes up his nose, but he just tilts his head to change the angle. 'Hush, hush, I've got you.'

Really, he's got _her_, hands strong and steady at her hips to hold her in place. But he indulges her anyway, because what else is there for him to do? She's drunker than he thought she was, or at least he thinks so, and he's never seen her drunk to know how to deal with her.

'I've got you,' she repeats, quiet, and still giggling, moving her finger to cup his face instead, other hand moving to join its sister along his jaw line. 'You're very handsome.'

'Thank you.'

'More handsome than – than,' she stops to think about it, and leans in, noses rubbing. Her breath is warm across his face, and smells of alcohol and strawberries. 'Don't tell him this, but I think you're more handsome than Gabriel.'

'That is very handsome,' he hums, rubbing his thumbs across the balls of her hips. She's been filling out of late, finally coming into her own, and it is a very attractive lady she's becoming, but she has growing left to do. He will not feel her pelvis so easily by the time she is done. 'Are you sure of that? I know people who'd disagree with you.'

'Well, they're _wrong_. They don't see this – this side of you! You're so _soft_, and gentle, and you're a lovely man, when you want to be. _I _think you're lovely, anyway. I love you, you know.'

'I know.'

She frowns at him, pursed lips and wrinkled nose, a disgruntled kitten in the world of lions, and he finds himself smiling. There isn't all that much difference, between sobriety and drunkenness. A looser tongue, perhaps, but not that much difference.

'You said you wouldn't make love to me,' she mumbles, and leans closer still, lips barely brushing his. 'You said it wasn't the right time.'

'I did.'

'Can I make you change your mind?'

'No, darling, I don't think so.'

'Oh. Oh, well that's sad.'

'I'm sorry.'

She doesn't seem to think he is, and that's fine, he's fine with that. She can believe that if she'd like, it doesn't change the fact that were circumstances different, he would very much like to take her to his bed, or have her drag him to hers.

'Arthur,' she whispers, and he hums, raising an eyebrow.

'Yes?'

'I love you.'

He should have seen it coming, a little tipsy himself or not. She kisses him, sloppy and unrefined – drunk and inexperienced both, and he's kissed plenty, sighs against her mouth before pulling back. She chases, and he chuckles against her mouth before turning his head.

'You have had far too much to drink, darling,' he hums, and squeezes her hips, lifts her up and to her unsteady, pretty little feet. 'I think it's time we put you to bed.'

Her hands, which had still been on his face, slide down to his neck, and then back, lacing together across his nape and refuse to part. He could just duck out of her embrace, but Marie has known him all her life, she's learnt a few dirty tricks from him and tangles his hair into the lace of her hands.

'Darling,' he warns, but she just pulls them together and kisses him again.

Had he not wanted to lean down, there was no way she could have made him, but he does not allow her to kiss him for too long, sweeping her off her feet and into his arms, effectively breaking contact. There was no point in denying that yes, he would very much like to kiss her, and to continue kissing her, but the after-burn of alcohol was not something he wanted to taste on her tongue.

'Taking me to bed, Master Kirkland?' she hums, and runs her fingers over the ridge of bone at the back of his neck. 'And in your arms as well! Oh, I have _dreamed_ of this day!'

'You're going to feel foul in the morning,' he hums, ignoring the ice and fire her fingers are trailing over his skin, starting for the stairs.

'Will you stay with me?' she asks, and her mouth is hot and wet against his jaw. It can't feel particularly enjoyable; he's getting scruffy again, neglecting to shave for most of the week and leaving him with enough of a shadow that it must surely be brittle against her lips.

'No,' he tells her, and tilts his head away, but that just frees up his neck for her. 'No, I will put you to bed, and retire to my own.'

'Nonsense,' she hums, mouthing the word against his throat, teeth raking over his skin. He reaches the top of the stairs, takes a few steps across the landing, and then she's biting, leaving little red marks across his neck as though they were all medals, little marks of ownership, feats of bravery on the battlefield of love and lust.

Thanking the fact she is in his arms and not his lap, he takes her to her bed, and sets her down, prying her fingers away from his hair to let her clasp them. Too busy looking at their hands, he misses her eyes trail down.

'I thought you were a rifleman,' she says, and he frowns.

'What?'

'Why would you keep your rifle in your breeches?' she asks, and looks up at him through her lashes. 'Or – oh! Were you enjoying that? Should I continue?'

Marie tries to pull him closer, but he is too strong for her, once he has set his weight, and she ends up flopping back against the bed, giggling away to herself.

'Can you disrobe yourself,' he asks, 'or will you be requiring aid?'

She laughs some more, and waves him away.

'Go,' she laughs, 'deal with your rifle, my dear. I can manage from here.'

But she grabs at his trouser brace as he turns to leave, and tugs until he can't walk any further.

'Oh, but – do come back here, when you are done?'

'I think not.'

'The bed is awfully cold,' she says, 'and I am very drunk.'

'The alcohol will keep you warm. It keeps me warm at sea.'

'Alcohol and whores!'

He turns back to look at her, and she looks very unimpressed with him.

'Marie, I.'

'Don't you "Marie, I" me! I am of age, am I not? I know how the world works, _England_, and I know too well how _you_ work.'

Arthur watches her, lets her watch him in turn, and he hasn't been this tense since he met Francis on the battlefield at Waterloo. His shoulders are back, spine tight and his eyes do not move from hers, though she's got a roaming gaze, admiring, perhaps. It's hard to tell with the fog on the sea-green staring at him. She looks angry, too, shoulders hunched and fists tight in the sheets.

'Goodnight, madam,' he says, breaking the silence in a crack of thunder, and the sound of his boots as he leaves the room is the only one.

His, ahem, _rifle_, does not need 'dealing with' by the time he arrives at his room, mood having been thoroughly quashed by her flippant, nigh-on capricious behaviour, and he is _tired_.

A storm hits that night, and he is out in the rain in the morning in his shirt-sleeves, sitting on the wall of her garden and looking out to the fields beyond. He has been there since before dawn, watching the sun's battle with the storm, and he has watched it lose, sinking behind the clouds to give the militant grey purchase over the blazing yellow. There's a metaphor in there, a comment on how close the war could have been. But he chooses to ignore it, looking instead to anything other than _metaphor._

'Arthur?'

He turns his head to look at her, standing in the doorway with her robe gathered tight about her. She looks a little grey, and there are shadows under her eyes; he has seen sleepless nights a thousand times.

'Good morning,' he says, and turns back to the field. After some minutes of silence, he says, 'I'm not even a rifleman.'

It makes her giggle, though the sound is a trifle forced.

'I wish to apologise,' she says then, and he turns back again.

'There's nothing I should forgive,' he shrugs, and slips off the wall to go to the door, raking a hand through his hair.

'My behaviour,' she starts, and he laughs.

'You're young,' he says, and shucks her chin. 'And really very silly. Forget about it.'

She lingers at the doorway long after Arthur has headed upstairs to wash and dress, and by the time he comes back, she's still sitting there, though now with a cup of tea, leaning against the doorway.

'Marie,' he says, still rubbing at his hair to get the wetness out, 'if anyone should apologise, it should be I.'

'Nonsense,' she sighs, and glances up at him. He notices her eyes linger, but there is no rifle to catch her attention. Not that it stops her blushing, of course. 'You have done nothing to apologise for.'

'Have I not?' he hums, and hooks his thumbs into his trouser braces, watching her watch him. 'I thought perhaps my behaviour – no, no, the way I have treated you – I have not been the most pleasant man.'

'No man is pleasant,' she scoffs, and for the briefest second, a wicked smile curls across her lips. 'That is the nature of man, after all. Fops, are they not, men who have pleasure enough?'

Arthur presses his lips into a tight line, and waits, but she seems to have not realised the error, and he licks at a scab on his lip before saying, 'darling, you mean "men who are pleasant enough." To have pleasure, as you say, is to, ah, change the meaning of fop.'

She blinks at him, and slowly colours before averting her eyes and hiding them with a hand.

'I hate your wretched language! So many pitfalls!'

He laughs, and nudges at her with his foot. 'You'll be alright,' he tells her, and winks when she looks back at him. 'We'll get you there.'

'In a thousand years! I shall _never_ get the hang of this!'

'Well, we're hardly going to speak French, are we?' he asks; 'now _that_ is a wretched language!'

Her smile is lovely, and the quiet sigh of laughter is much nicer than the forced giggles.

'_We'll_ be alright, won't we?' she asks. 'We'll get there?'

'That depends on where "there" is,' he replies, sighing a little, and straightens up, extending a hand down to help her up, 'but yes, I think we might. I have conquered enough of the world that I might as well own the whole bloody thing, and you will conquer your brother soon enough, and yes, yes I think we might get there, wherever it is.'

'And what if I do? If I win independence from Lars, if I become my own woman, what then? Will you come conquer me, too? Will I crown your Empire as India does now?'

'No,' he says, and steps away from the door to set about making tea. 'I rather think it will be _you_ conquering _me_.'

'Oh, now I _know_ you're humouring me! No one has ever conquered you, Arthur; not Rome, not the Vikings, not even Francis. What hope have I if an empire cannot conquer you?'

He smiles, and finishes making the pot before he replies.

'They do not hold my heart,' he tells her with a shrug. 'You cannot conquer a man if you cannot break his spirit, and so long as you are alive, and safe, my spirit shall never break.'

She does not reply, and he huffs out a laugh before turning the conversation to other things. Before he has finished his cup of tea, Marie is excusing herself to dress and ready herself for the day.

Gilbert comes trekking mud through the house a few days after Marie's little misadventure. The storm has cleared, giving Arthur time to start doing heavy-lifting without slipping on the mud, because Marie wants her apple tree moved, but lacks the strength to do it herself. Arthur thoroughly suspects, as he drags the tree around to the front of her house, that she could, were he not here to do it, but why should she get her hands dirty when she has her handsome English soldier to do it for her? Were she here to watch him, he knows she would be doing nothing but, sitting on the front step and watching him sweat in the sun.

'What _are_ you doing?'

Arthur looks up and grunts. 'Don't stand there gawping, you miserable little shit. Give us a hand.'

Gilbert dismounts, secures his horse, and plods on over. Between them, they manage to haul the tree off the ground – this was not to say that Arthur couldn't lift the tree himself, because he had more than enough strength for that, but he simply didn't have long enough arms to carry it. They take it to the hole Marie had helped dig, and get a few apples to the head when they drop it into place and fill the hole back in.

'Gravity,' Gilbert huffs, but they collect the apples anyway and take them through to the kitchen.

'Why are you here?' Arthur asks, and Gilbert drops his pack to rifle through it and extends a bottle to him.

'Apfelwein,' he says. 'Compliments of the wife.'

Arthur accepts it, and fully intends to drink the damn stuff before Marie decides a repeat of last week is in order. 'How is Mina? She didn't look too good when I saw her at Lisbon.'

'Bad,' Gilbert says. 'Things are – it's getting – they're talking of _provinces_.'

'Oh.'

He needn't say more; _provinces_ means only one thing is to come.

'Oh, I'm – I.'

Gilbert waves him off. 'Save your breath, Hanover. We knew it was coming. Got too big for my boots, didn't I? And after all this time, she's the one paying the price.'

'She wouldn't have it any other way. She's a strong lass, and she wants you to have that strength.'

'Arthur, please.'

Arthur does not apologise, for Gilbert hates hearing apologies. Only a weak man apologises, he says, and what use is a weak man in the world of war? To Gilbert, every word is a battle cry, and every walk a march. He will calm, Arthur knows. He will sober with age. But age has not crept up on him yet, and they are all still so full of themselves, over-confident with their youth stretching in front of them forever. Soldiers are angry by nature, and there is no outlet for that anger now.

'Where's _your_ woman, anyway?' Gilbert asks, cracking his knuckles and looking about as though expecting an attack. Arthur does the same, watches the windows at evening, keeps his eyes on every door, ready for the French, so he does not raise the issue.

'In town,' he shrugs, and gets up to get two glasses from the dresser. 'She's taken a particular offence to the state of my uniform, says she's going to make me a new one.'

He doesn't say that she has been avoiding him for the most part, since that night of drinking, doesn't particularly want his business aired to Gilbert of all people. The Prussian has a loose tongue and an even looser leash on his sense of decency, and were he to hear of it, so would half of the world. Marie is embarrassed enough, and things have been tense without the rest of Europe poking their noses in. Gilbert, for his part, doesn't seem to notice that there's anything amiss.

'That's a good woman you've got there. Mina wouldn't fix my wounds, never mind my clothes.'

'Of course she wouldn't,' Arthur snorts, and wedges the bottle between his arm and side to wrench the cork free. 'You were stupid enough to get injured; you can fix the injury yourself. Daft old sod.'

'Just as old as you, Hanover.'

They spend the next hour or so getting through the bottle of cider, rehashing old battles, and filling in the details that they missed in the meeting following Waterloo. Gilbert is full of stories of his bravery, and nearly gets a glass thrown in his face when he says that the unit he'd attached himself to had been greener than the Americans.

'So shiny and new,' he sighs, 'you'd think they were toys, not soldiers.'

'Beilschmidt.'

'Kirkland.'

Marie returns late in the afternoon, fabric over one arm and an escort on the other. Arthur frowns at the plucky young boy until he takes his leave, though Marie tries to insist he stays.

'Arthur,' she huffs, calling through the house as she moves to put the fabric away. 'You're such a horrible man, you know!'

'Yes, darling, I know.'

'You are such a pushover,' Gilbert scoffs, and tosses the last of his glass back, before getting to his feet. 'I should be on my way.'

'Oh, Gilbert!' Marie says as she enters the kitchen at last, 'I didn't know you were here! Are you staying long?'

'No, no, I'm heading back to Potsdam. Promised the wife I'd be there by lunchtime tomorrow.'

'You came a long way out,' she says, and sniffs the bottle on the table, casting Arthur a look as she does. He pretends to be innocent, of course. 'There's nothing to bring you here.'

'Oh of course there is,' Gilbert tells her, all long accent and easy laughter, and pulls his pack over his shoulder. 'Pretty lady like you? Worth crossing the globe for, that is.'

She smiles at him, and chuckles. 'Mina's taught you well. Stay a while, you rogue, and I'll make you some food for the journey.'

Gilbert looks at Arthur, who raises his chin, and the Prussian makes a production of sitting back down, all _well if you insist_s, and _who am I to argue_s?

He leaves not long after Marie has finished making some sandwiches, wrapped in thin cloth, and a collection of things that Arthur knew Gilbert would sooner feed his horse than eat himself, and Arthur goes with him to where Gilbert had left his ever-so-trusty steed.

'You love her,' the Prussian says, and Arthur snorts.

'On your way.'

'You didn't take your eyes off her once.'

'Perhaps, perhaps not.'

Gilbert finishes checking the saddle, and studies his friend from the corner of his eye.

'We didn't fight together nearly enough,' he says, 'we should do it again sometime. I'd like to see you fighting when you aren't worried about her being on the battlefield.'

(The next time they meet in battle, it will be in a rain-soaked field, and Arthur will be blind with rage. Gilbert will expect the attack, will welcome it, even, and he will let Arthur win the struggle, will allow himself to be wrestled to the ground and pinned there by Arthur's weight. He will let the Englishman choke him blue, and will laugh as he is called a coward, a dead man, a washed-up wreck of a nation, will not fight back. He will never fight side-by-side with his old friend, merely against, and friendship means nothing when Arthur's girl's safety is on the line.

When Arthur asks why, over half a century later as they play cards at Christmas, Gilbert will shrug and say, _I had to know for sure._)

'Maybe,' Arthur agrees, and holds the reins tight to let Gilbert mount. 'But I'm getting old now, my friend. I can't be gallivanting off picking fights with anyone willy-nilly. It starts with calling a man out for a slight to his wife and shooting him in the arse, and it escalates into a full-blown war!'

Gilbert seems to find the idea amusing, and Arthur can still see him chuckling as he trots off down the path. Marie comes to stand by him when he's still there long after Gilbert's out of sight, and wraps an arm about his waist.

'He's losing her, isn't he?'

Arthur's arm winds around her shoulders, thumb rubbing over the skin under his hand.

'Hmm?'

'Gilbert, he's losing Mina. It's written all over his face. He looks so _sad_. I'd never say he was _scared_, but he looks it. He's all sorts of tight, the way you get when I'm hurt and you think I'm not looking. But it's not – it's not fear. It's, oh bother, um. He's.' She stops to think about it. 'He's given up,' she says finally, having given up her search for the word.

'Resignation,' Arthur offers, and she nods.

'Yes! Resignation. He's full of it. It will be a sad day, the day she dies.'

'Aye. But he will live, and as long as he lives, so will she. His heart beats for her.'

'All good men's hearts beat for their wives.'

'There might be some truth in that.'

She squeezes his side then, tells him she's cooking Spanish food if he thinks he can stomach it, and he laughs, assures her that he'll eat anything she puts in front of him, and follows her back into the house. He doesn't need to ask if they're alright; they're fine, things are back to normal. Attempts at solicitation are to be forgotten. Arthur is good at forgetting. He's even better at pretending.

(They don't hear anything else from Gilbert until long after Arthur's returned to England, where a stack of letters waits for him with one of George's intelligence officers. Arthur is none too impressed with his personal correspondence being intercepted, and finds himself looking through Gilbert's letters with a sense of impending dread. He takes the first boat to Calais and then rides hard through France and cuts up into Belgium to get to Potsdam. By the time he arrives, Mina will have passed, and Gilbert will be deep in a bottle of rum. Arthur will join him with a second bottle, and they will reminisce late into the next morning.)

Belgium, as a whole, is just as infamous for bad weather as England is, and a second rainstorm comes late in the evening as they sit on the porch looking out over the newly-arranged garden. Arthur has perhaps a week of Leave left, and he laughs at the rain.

'Do you remember?' he asks, and shrugs out of his coat to give her something to cover her bare arms. 'Back before all this, when we were off discovering the New World, Francis asked what you saw in me to want to be my friend?'

Marie shuffles closer, and stretches his coat out to drape it over his shoulders too. They aren't in the way of the rain, but it has brought with it a chill, and that thin hemp shirt of his is rendered rather useless.

'Yes,' she sighs, and rests her head on his shoulder, wriggling her way under his arm. 'I told him we had the rain.'

He laughs, and she thinks his fingers are writing something, but she struggles with written English, and the shapes make no sense to her.

'We do at that,' he agrees, and hums with soft contentment. 'I shall miss this.'

'The rain?'

He laughs louder, and squeezes her briefly before shaking his head. 'No, darling, no. This; us. This – this _contentment_. I don't get this kind of peace anywhere else in the world.'

'That is quite a bold statement, good sir. _Nowhere_? Even though you have seen it all?'

'Well,' he says, a little hesitant now. 'Before, with – well. Before. Perhaps. But not now. And definitely not before the Empire! You have always been a centre of peace.'

She hums, and her hand rests on his thigh, fingers brushing against the inseam, just enough that he can feel it.

'Well, as long as you're happy here, my door will always be open for you. My house is yours, whenever you require it.'

'I shall hold you to that offer, madam.'

'Good.'

The storm is still hammering rain upon the house by the time they retire, and Arthur is sprawled out in a shirt when Marie lets herself in. Had he not expected her to come to him, he would have locked the door, but as it is, she comes crawling into his bed and worming her way under his arm to leech his warmth.

'I'm surprised you're in clothes,' she whispers. 'You've always slept naked.'

'There was a chill,' he replies, and shifts his weight to better rest it against hers.

'Yes,' Marie snorts, snuggling into him. 'That would be because you've got the window open.'

He grins at her, and agrees that yes, that's probably why the room is cold.

'Will you read to me?' she asks after a few minutes of silence, 'it's hard to sleep.'

'Read?'

'Yes, I like hearing you read aloud. You have a nice voice.'

That's not entirely true, of course. He has too much gravel and too much accent, but she likes it all the same. He reads with such a steady monotone, and he's so soft when he reads, so enraptured by the words going in his eyes and out his mouth, and he could be reading the driest of government reports, and she'd listen to it all. Perhaps not enjoy it, but she would definitely listen.

It takes him several minutes to locate a book, and she watches him pad about the room, giggling at the way he hops to try and keep his feet off the cold floor, and eventually he returns to bed and they settle together, find the perfect place for him to read. Her ear is against his heart, and he has the book propped up on her shoulder, reading over her head. It isn't particularly interesting – it's something to do with _soldiers_ and Marie has had _quite enough_ of soldiers – but the rumble in Arthur's chest drags her deeper and deeper until she's eventually falling asleep against him.

He tells her later that it is a satire, and she will tell him that that does not make it any less boring to listen to. He tells her that it's French, and she will make a noise of understanding whilst she pours out some tea.

'That explains so much.'

But she does not tell him just what it explains, and any attempts to educate her on the book are quickly aborted in the face of it. He watches her as she potters about the kitchen, and she smiles at him when she catches him looking, a secretive little smile, and he knows she's going to tell Francis that he read her a French book in bed, and Francis will not let him live it down for _years_.

'Do you think,' he starts, as the thought crosses his mind, 'that Francis would be terribly put out if I were to go and visit him?'

'Yes,' she replies immediately. 'You gave him a thorough thrashing, dear. Let him lick his wounds a while before you go to gloat.'

'You say that as though he is the only injured party! I almost lost a foot.'

'Yes, dear.'

'And I got shot several times! And stabbed too, the French officers were such a nuisance. They cheated.'

'Might I remind you that you have never once in your life obeyed that code of honour you gentleman officers preach about? You cheat in every fight you get into.'

'Well, _yes_. But it's different when I do it!'

She looks at him, and he looks back at her, and she finally laughs, shaking her head and sets the tea down on the table.

'You are such an impossible man, Arthur Kirkland.'

'I try my best.'

Arthur returns to England with the promise to return as soon as he can. As he embraces her, holds her tight and breathes the smell of her in, knowing he won't get to for a while yet, he promises that he will lie to his bosses, that when his next sojourn across the Empire is done, and he is to return home, he will come to her first, he will seek her out and he will bring her things from the world over. He promises that maybe one day he will take her with him again, that he will show her the world.

'I'm holding you to that promise, Arthur James Kirkland.'

'I'll keep it,' he whispers, and presses a warm, dry kiss to her ear, thinks he might seek out some precious jewel to adorn it. She'd like that; she's always loved every trinket he brings her, ever since those first daisy chains as children.

She sighs, and eventually lets him go, watches him mount up and ride off to the port at Antwerp. He does not keep the promise; the next time she sees him, they will be at London, twenty-four years later and he will hold her hand under the table before letting it go to sign the Treaty, securing her Independence. He will embrace her afterwards, hold her as close – closer, she thinks, though it's wishful – as ever, nose pressed under her ear to inhale the scent of roses left by her perfume.

'I told you we'd get there,' he whispers. 'Now you've just got to conquer me.'

(It takes another hundred years and another two wars to get the rest of the way, but they make it there eventually.)

**++End++**

**NOTES:**

Title comes from contemporary folk song, _O'er the Hills_, popularised by John Tams singing for the theme of _Sharpe._

There are a lot of _Sharpe _references in here, and another one is **Hogan**, who in the show was one of Wellington's spies.

The **Book of Common Prayer** is the Anglican's main book, and at the time, England had an Anglican king, and would likely have carried a copy of the book around with him.

If you want someone to thank for **Arthur Dear and Darling**, you can thank Pale-Jonquil, who one day turned to me and said, "You know what would be cool? A Lady and the Tramp AU with Arthur Dear and Darling and they adopt a corgi puppy."

Arthur **James** Kirkland is not, obviously, his full name by canon, but I like the way it sounds.

I imagine **Arthur** to be around 21 at this point, and **Marie** to be about 16.

George III, current King of England, comes from the House of **Hanover**, hence Gilbert's nickname.

**Mina** is the Margraviate of Brandenburg and later Province of the Kingdom of Prussia, and Gilbert's wife from 1618 to 1815. A personal union between the two houses, they formed the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701.

Calling a man out and **shooting him in the arse** is a reference to _Sharpe's Revenge_ by Bernard Cornwell, though I'm going off the TV adaptation. Though the duel didn't lead to a full-scale war, it did lead to some nastiness.

Arthur is **reading** _Candide___by Voltaire. The correct pronunciation is, of course, can-diddy. (Just to assuage your worries, that is a joke. I know it's pronounced can-deed.)

**Thanks for reading!**

**++Vince++**


End file.
